Earlier this month Charles Addams took over some space at the Museum of the City of New York with a fitting exhibit spotlighting the cartoonist's own depictions of the city. Over 80 drawings, cartoons, sketches, watercolors, and pencil sketches (some of which were never published), as well as examples of the artist’s personal ephemera are on view through May 16th. A little history:
- The museum actually mounted the cartoonist's first solo exhibition in 1956, about 23 years after his first cartoon was published in The New Yorker.
- Addams studied at the Grand Central School of Art.
- Out of 3,000 pictures he created in his lifetime, only 250 included the now famous Addams Family.
- Once the family appeared on television in 1964, New Yorker editor William Shawn banned them from the magazine, noting they were no longer appropriate for their sophisticated readership. The ban was lifted in 1987.
- The exhibit's appropriately timed with the new Addams Family musical, which is currently on Broadway and is based on the cartoons, not the TV show.
A highlight of the exhibition will show the ghoulish family roaming around Addams's pseudo-NYC, which includes the East River, the Manhattan skyline, the subway, the Statue of Liberty, and a giant squirrel in the park.
